Witching hour draws wizard fanatics to ‘Potter’ finale

For each year in her life, 13-year-old Amy Danoff has read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone twice.

"My mom started reading me Harry Potter when the first book came out. I was like 3," Danoff explained excitedly as she waited outside United Artists Riverview Stadium in South Philly for Thursday's much-anticipated midnight premiere of the series' final film. "I've read the first book 26 times."

Danoff and her friend Leah Kramer, also 13, donned their Harry Potter gear and convinced Danoff's father, Theo, to accompany them to the premiere.

Both girls wore "We miss Dobby," T-shirts, which they made themselves in honor of one of their favorite characters from the book and film series, along with striped Harry Potter scarves, taped black glasses, and drawn-on lightning-bolt scars on their foreheads. They joined hundreds of other fans who packed the theater for its seven showings of the film - one started a minute after another beginning at 12:01 a.m.

"It gets a lot of kids involved in reading. As a parent, I have nothing to complain about," Theo Danoff said of his daughter's love for the series.

But young fans weren't the only ones to attend the midnight premiere.

Matt Decker, 30, who just returned from a trip to Universal Orlando's Wizarding World of Harry Potter last week, proudly displayed the "elder wand" he bought on the trip, as he and his friends waited to enter the theater.

"It's a generational thing," Decker said. "We feel like, in some ways, we've grown with these characters."

He joked, "We also fully understand this will mean that we'll be single for the rest of our lives, but we have wands."